I really liked the story (read it after a CGM mentioned it in an email). It didn't bother me that the full consequences of it hadn't been explored. For me the recent introduction of the water covered that enough - say it's been around for 3 months, yes there are probably a bunch of journalists having an extremely entertaining time being able to suddenly access all sorts of stuff they couldn't before; it's probably not been around long enough or proven trustworthy enough for anyone to be thinking about using it in courts - and the main character (biotech engineer preoccupied with his own issues) not commenting on this stuff.
I think the water is massively influential in the family story but that doesn't necessarily come at the climactic moment, so I can see why you felt differently. I think the huge influence of the water is that it enables Matt to admit to himself how much he actually loves Gus and is committed to Gus - which he wasn't really admitting to himself and therefore couldn't process / wasn't able to face bringing up with his family. Matt can stop twisting himself in circles and being partly trapped because the water acts as an external validator to sort his internal landscape out. (I also think it's significant that it falls when his sister claims that Gus will cheat on him (and that it's telling that Matt knows that and reacts without hesitation).)
I think the structure of the story (with the kind of anti-climax at the end, because most of the significant stuff happened earlier) reinforces the theme of the story. Matt thinks/fears that his parents will have a huge negative reaction to him coming out, and then everything's scary and his sister goes off on one and he's convinced it's all ruined and ... actually, his parents are totally cool and incredibly supportive. Oh. That was unexpected. Huh.
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Date: 2014-07-12 10:16 am (UTC)I really liked the story (read it after a CGM mentioned it in an email). It didn't bother me that the full consequences of it hadn't been explored. For me the recent introduction of the water covered that enough - say it's been around for 3 months, yes there are probably a bunch of journalists having an extremely entertaining time being able to suddenly access all sorts of stuff they couldn't before; it's probably not been around long enough or proven trustworthy enough for anyone to be thinking about using it in courts - and the main character (biotech engineer preoccupied with his own issues) not commenting on this stuff.
I think the water is massively influential in the family story but that doesn't necessarily come at the climactic moment, so I can see why you felt differently. I think the huge influence of the water is that it enables Matt to admit to himself how much he actually loves Gus and is committed to Gus - which he wasn't really admitting to himself and therefore couldn't process / wasn't able to face bringing up with his family. Matt can stop twisting himself in circles and being partly trapped because the water acts as an external validator to sort his internal landscape out. (I also think it's significant that it falls when his sister claims that Gus will cheat on him (and that it's telling that Matt knows that and reacts without hesitation).)
I think the structure of the story (with the kind of anti-climax at the end, because most of the significant stuff happened earlier) reinforces the theme of the story. Matt thinks/fears that his parents will have a huge negative reaction to him coming out, and then everything's scary and his sister goes off on one and he's convinced it's all ruined and ... actually, his parents are totally cool and incredibly supportive. Oh. That was unexpected. Huh.